Article in the Times on Michael Clark<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Michael Clark has been to the edge and back. Now he's making dances again <BR> <BR>When Michael Clark was a young man, he nurtured an image of himself as the dangerously romantic artist, a Byronesque figure living wild and free, pushing himself to extremes in the name of art. He made delinquent, screaming dances dressed in outrageous costumes and accompanied by ear-piercing rock music. And the excesses on stage were matched by the excesses of Clark’s life off stage. By his mid-twenties he was a heroin addict; by his mid-thirties he was a virtual recluse, worn out by more than a decade of hard living. As a force in the world of dance he was well and truly spent. <BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <A HREF="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-2001360298,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Article in the Evening Standard<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"Try this," says Michael Clark, and launches into a sequence which resolves itself into a crouching balance over one leg. The five female dancers of his company flicker doubtful glances at each other and attempt the sequence themselves. It doesn't look quite the same. Clark smiles patiently. "We're all a bit knackered," he murmurs<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/music/top_review.html?in_review_id=436017&in_review_text_id=390487" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

<B>Bolshie ballet</B> <BR>Michael Clark, the dancer with attitude, is back after beating his addiction to heroin - and so is his desire to outrage audiences, writes Gillian Bowditch in The Sunday Times<BR> <BR> <BR>When Michael Clark walks into the Bush Bar and Grill, a mediocre restaurant by London standards but a haven of sophistication amid the minicab offices and tat emporiums on the Goldhawk Road, I fail to recognise him. <P>It's the first time I've met the dancer, who is considered by even his fiercest critics to be the outstanding talent of his generation, but I have read about his extraordinary beauty - so incorruptible it would make Narcissus weep with envy - and I am expecting a combination of Sebastian Flyte and Lucifer. <P><A HREF="http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/10/21/stiecoeco02018.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>

<B>MICHAEL CLARK: ORIGINAL BRITISH</B><P>WHO: MICHAEL CLARK COMPANY<BR>WHEN: WED 24 - SUN 28 OCTOBER<BR>WHERE: SADLER'S WELLS<BR>TICKETS: 020 7863 8000<P><BR>Another millennium, another comeback. And a most welcome one it is. Michael Clark returns to Umbrella 2001 for the first time since 1998. The vehicle is an internationally co-produced programme in which the British original is looking to the future without forgetting his glorious -some might say notorious - past.<P>One of Clark's pieces will be composed primarily of early work made to music by The Fall, with additional new vocal links between the songs. It will also feature Leigh Bowery costumes and sets by Trojan, designs that helped establish Clark and company as one of the defining cultural entities of the early 1980s.<P>"Something about Leigh's costumes allowed us to become characters other than ourselves," Clark remarks. "It was very enjoyable to do, but complicated, not easy." What is revisiting the work like? "Quite strange, and very interesting, some of the very decorative shapes I was working with back then. But I'm probably thinking more about what I'm saying now. I want to use old material to make something that isn't just a revival." The idea, then, is the antithesis of a cheesy, 'Greatest Hits' nostalgia trip. Rather, Clark is keen for audiences, whether new to his work or not, "to see my most recent work in the context of the earlier work."<P>Fans of Clark the dancer may be disappointed. As his 39th birthday approaches, he's aware of the physical limitations engendered by the inescapable fact of maturing. Eight dancers are being enlisted for the current project. "I'm pretty determined it won't include me," Clark says, explaining, "I would like to make something where I'm not the blueprint for how everybody else should look or dance. I'll probably be able to do a better job on the choreography and help the dancers more. It's important for me to be able to step back. In the last piece [1998's current/SEE] I was finding it difficult to be at the centre and give the dancers around me the kind of management and direction they needed. I'm very excited about the ones I have now." They are young, however, and, for the sake of balance, Clark hopes to recruit some slightly more seasoned performers.<P>Another of Clark's collaborators is the young (mid-30s) and versatile British artists Sarah Lucas. Time Out art critic Sarah Kent enthusiastically describes Lucas' work as 'smart, funny and crude. She'll use things lying about - furniture, or fruit. Her work is usually about gender, and often quite obscene. And it just keeps getting better and better.'<P>Lucas and Clark met socially and clicked. He later spent a bit of time working for her - "when I was skint," he says - on a series of objects that needed fresh cigarettes individually glued to them. "It was at a time when she was giving up smoking herself," Clark says. "I kind of thought if we had to see each other every day, a dialogue would begin." It did. In early May, Clark was still speculating on just what Lucas will come up with for him. Although she normally works on what he deems "a very human scale," for him she might create "a very large object."<P>Clark is modest in the memories of his pre-fame days. "All I'd done was a couple of pieces in a Royal [Ballet School] workshop." But the savvy David Gothard saw them and, because of his position at Riverside Studios, was able to offer Clark space there. The young man accepted the invitation, even though at the time he wondered, "What is he basing this on?" The first review Clark got in Time Out savaged his work as 'a wanky disaster.'<P>Still, Clark got noticed, and then some. In its heyday his company drew an audience eager to experience the barrier-breaking dance-based entertainment Clark was offering. "I thought I was quite ambitious in terms of what dance as an art form could be," he concurs. "Not only that it might be taken more seriously, but also that more interesting people might be making dance at the same time." Retrospectively, it seems his maverick presence was not necessarily catalytic."I was disappointed," Clark says. "I kind of disappeared for four years [in the early 90s] and came back and felt nothing had really changed." His comments about a pattern he saw developing in<BR>British dance are withering. "There are quite a lot of not very interesting people who can dance, people who thought they were good dancers and could be good choreographers too."<P>Until recently, with the flowering of a 'next generation' of dance-makers like Akram Khan, Wayne McGregor and Henri Oguike [all of whom have had associations with Dance Umbrella], few British-based artists have managed to generate the buzz that belonged to Clark. Sadler's Wells was the sight of some of his most blazing, controversial London triumphs. His Umbrella performances there this autumn will be the first since 1988. Clark would naturally prefer using live music. But, after touring current/SEE with four dancers and seven musicians, this time he says he's keen to "channel the money into the dance."<P>The revival piece apart, this summer Clark may concoct more than one totally new work. Musically he's been toying with the sound of producer Phil Spector, the man behind some of the best of America's 1960s girl groups, and also working on a piece to Satie. He's also scouting around for dance theories on which to exercise what he calls "the contrary side of my nature. I usually want to react against something, for instance if I'm told things have to be a certain way." He says he was like this as a child in his native Scotland. "My mother would say 'Stop it!' Whatever it was, I always had to do it one more time. And that's the time it would break." Clark knows in advance that he "won't necessarily agree with what I read. People have developed systems and rules. I find there's something ridiculous about that. At the same time, there might be truth in it. I enjoy that."<P>How stressed is he about the creations and touring that will be demanded of him in the coming months? "I always feel pressure. I put it on myself. I want to do my best. Not that I want it to be better than anything I've done before. I just want to feel I'm taking the work to another level."<P><P>------------------<BR>This interview was posted by Stuart Sweeney on behalf of Donald Hutera.<P>Donald Hutera writes regularly on dance and arts for The Times, Evening Standard, Time Out, Dance Europe, Dance Magazine (US) and Dance Now. He is co-author, with Allen Robertson, of The Dance Handbook.<P>This interview first appeared in either the Spring or Autumn 2001 editions of Dance Umbrella News. <BR> <BR>Join Dance Umbrella's mailing list to receive future editions of Dance Umbrella News. <BR>Call: 020 8741 5881 <BR>Email: mail@danceumbrella.co.uk <BR>Web: <A HREF="http://www.danceumbrella.co.uk" TARGET=_blank>www.danceumbrella.co.uk</A>

_________________This interview was posted by Stuart Sweeney on behalf of Donald Hutera and first appeared in Dance Umbrella News.

Donald Hutera writes regularly on dance and arts for The Times, Evening Standard, Time Out, Dance Europe, Dance Magazine (US) and Dance Now. He is co-author, with Allen Robertson, of The Dance Handbook.

Ismene Brown in The Telegraph<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"BEFORE" and "After" are dreadful words. Before Michael Clark did his head in with heroin, he was a unique new presence in dance, a blissfully beautiful ballet boy with a wild, up-to-date imagination. Clark's ballet exploded out of his head when he was still in his teens - it came looking quite unlike anything that anybody else was doing, tottering in silver platform boots, with buttock-exposing leotards and bare breasts, trippy sets and pulverisingly loud rock music. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005760794236107&rtmo=fwNfwsYs&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/10/22/btdan22.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

This is high-brow stuff:<P><BR><B>The rhythm method <P>Dance and masturbation are closer than you think, Michael Clark and Sarah Lucas tell Adrian Searle <P>Wednesday October 24, 2001<BR>The Guardian</B> <P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"I don't know **** about dance," says Sarah Lucas. "I knew she didn't like it," says Michael Clark. The artist and the dancer are together to talk about their collaboration, Before and After: The Fall. <BR>Much of Clark's early work, with Leigh Bowery and Trojan, corresponds with Lucas's sculpture and photographs, fried eggs and all. Bowery and Trojan were responsible for the outrageous, alarming costumes and sets that helped to fix Clark's reputation in the mid-1980s as the fallen angel of contemporary British dance. The set elements introduced to Before and After by Lucas - underwear, fluorescent lighting tubes and an enormous masturbating arm - are just the kind of things that gained her a reputation as an in-your-face, confrontational artist. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/story/0,3604,579646,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>read on...</B></A>

Article in The Herald.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>BARE buttocks and breasts, a prosthetic ***** , and a video of the back view of a young man who is patently not washing his socks, but is energetically engaged upon - how to put this in a family newspaper? - five-finger exercises.<P>Michael Clark is back (although it's not his back on screen), complete with dancers gobbing and spitting on stage, while simulating acts that range from drug abuse to self abuse. At one point, the naughty Scot pulls a clothes-line of Union Jack bunting from a young woman's bare backside, then appears to swallow a goldfish. All this plus ear-splitting rock music from The Fall and Primal Scream, among others.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><A HREF="http://www.theherald.co.uk/arts/archive/24-10-19101-21-17-44.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

<B>THE ARTS: An occasion for tears DANCE: <BR>Financial Times; Oct 26, 2001<BR>By CLEMENT CRISP</B><P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"It must be terrible to have peaked at the age of 16." So said a dance-lover, referring to Michael Clark and remembering the astounding boy who flashed through a Scottish dance at a Royal Ballet School matinee more than 20 years ago. It was an unforgettable appearance. Usually such affairs pass swiftly into limbo. Clark's elegance, the impeccable clarity of feet and limbs, presaged great things. But, one of nature's rebels, he rejected Opera House security. He seemed the Rimbaud of dance, and his early appearance in Richard Alston's Soda Lake told of present marvels and future hopes. Instead - and, say I, alas - he became a child of his time, that most corrupting of states, and punk dance, wild extravagance and all the deadly paraphernalia of self-indulgence in the 1980s claimed him, and corroded his talent. I recall evenings of frustration - mine quite as much as what I guessed was his - where crass dance and barbarous din were allied to aggressive costuming, urchin obscenity, and the feeling that here was a beautiful dancer deriding his own gifts so as to give maximum affront to a stuffy public, and provide youthful fans with a nose-thumbing at a fusty establishment. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=011026001231&query=clement+crisp" TARGET=_blank><B>read on...</B></A>

<B>Michael Clark touches all the right parts <P>Michael Clark Company<BR>Sadler's Wells, London<BR>Rating: *** <P>Judith Mackrell <BR>Guardian<P>Friday October 26, 2001</B><P><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The title of Michael Clark's new show, Before and After: The Fall, presents an obvious theological pun to anyone who knows or cares about his life. Divided between old and new material, the programme straddles the period in which Clark dropped out of sight, to battle the chemical demons that nearly killed him. It traces the career of an angelically talented dancer who went to hell and back. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4285472,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>read on...</B></A><P><BR><B>Michael Clark, Sadler’s Wells <BR> <BR>BY DEBRA CRAINE <BR>The Times<BR> <BR>Michael Clark is a perverse artist. A beautiful dancer in his youth, he spent years pretending he wasn’t</B> <BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>MICHAEL CLARK is a perverse artist. A beautiful dancer in his youth, he spent years pretending he wasn’t, years in which he ravaged his amazing body with drugs. <P>His choreography, first seen in the 1980s, was rebellious and prankish yet filled with a contrary beauty, as if the Royal Ballet School graduate couldn’t help bewitching us with pure steps. Almost 20 years have passed since Clark’s first public concert and much has happened since then. His new show, Before and After: The Fall, which came to Sadler’s Wells on Wednesday, charts the changes. Is he still making the body dance? Yes. Is he still perverse? Most definitely so. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P> <BR><A HREF="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-2001371746,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>read on...</B></A>

<B>My London: Michael Clark</B><BR>Interviewed by Vicki Reeve in The Evening Standard<P><BR><I>How long have you lived in London?</I> On and off since 1975, when I came to the Royal Ballet School.<P><I>Where do you live and why?</I> I don't have a house here - I've been moving around recently. I'm hoping to move to WC1 soon.<P><I>Are you a member of any club?</I> No, but I love the idea of a gentlemen's club Ð the ambience, leather chairs and cigar smoke. But it would have to welcome women. <P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/lifestyle/londonlife/top_review.html?in_review_id=468905&in_review_text_id=422565" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited October 26, 2001).]

<B>The Michael Clark Company, Sadler's Wells London<BR>Nadine Meisner<BR>27 October 2001</B><P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"Welcome back, Michael," a spectator cried. Michael Clark, the wild boy of dance, who was too beautiful to live and too young to die (but as a junkie probably almost did), took four years out in the 1990s to cleanse himself away from the eyes of publicity. Actually, he has been back since 1998, when he staged current/SEE, a radical return to the Cecchetti fundamentals of his Royal Ballet School training. This was generally interpreted as a gingerish Clarkian toe in the water, so a lot hangs on the first show he has mounted since then.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=101668" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A>

A review in The Observer<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>What everyone wants to know, of course, is whether Michael Clark can cut it as a choreographer. No one doubts his skill as a dancer, his talent as a provocateur or, for that matter, his charm and charisma and equal-opportunities sex appeal (a programme note refers to his 'kissed-ripe mouth', and who could argue with that?). But can he deliver as a dance-maker? <P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,581884,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

I've copied this review by <B>jwcw2</B> from another part of the forum: <P><B>RISES</B><P>Michael Clark Company (Sadler’s Wells October 24-28)<P>“You’ve got a typo in your review’s title. The programme is called ‘Before and After: The Fall.’” You begin to frown.<P>The first act of Michael Clark’s new show is called ‘Fall’. Recorded music plays before the curtain is lifted. Classical ballet steps are performed with either the front or the back of the leotards cut off. The sound systems produce screaming noises which hurt your ears. You cannot wait for the interval.<P>The second-act curtain rises as the stage is stripped bare, the ladders laid at its behind, the lights at its bottom. You shake your head furiously.<P>Finally, female dancers rise from flat to stand on their tip-toes between the two rows of lights on the floor. Their skin-coloured underwear unmasks their ballerinas’ physique and their Royal ballet training.<P>A sudden blackout and the music dies. <P>Smiles return when the lights at the bottom and the volume of the music begin to rise. A grand plié a là seconde, four female dancers, each with a lit fluorescent tube chassé across the stage. “Isn’t it beautiful?” You eventually sit back and enjoy the precise lines and angles crafted by Clark. You may even drip when you see the myriad ways in which the music and the tubes penetrate through all female bodies.<P>Oh, no, the third tube is not working. And the first, and the second, and the fourth. <BR> <BR>But, you see, the media technology works well in the dance. A video with a timecode shows a man in underwear facing the wall. Yes, he is trying to get a rise. Simultaneously, the female dancers chaîné and pirouette, each holding a plastic fist shaped for gripping. Three minutes, the man gets his rise; he begins to relax and breathe, and you do, too. Right, it is time to concentrate on the dance now. One by one, the women start with a grand jeté; they leap and turn, all along the perimeters of an invisible number “7”. How many fouetté en tournant can she do? How can her jumps be so light and quick? Look, the man is trying to get another rise. And he gets it in the 7th minute. You can hear liquid flowing into the music.<P>Stand back, crew members, the audience can see you in your sweaty T-shirts! <P>In fact, the male crew members are struggling to push out a giant arm of at least ten-feet high from backstage towards the centre. This arm has also got a fist shaped to grip. The female dancers who are dressed in pink tops and oversized shorts développé and promenade around the arm. Some with faked hairy legs even relevé in parallel inside the fist. They push against the floor as hard as they can, rising as high as they can go. Then they bend forward and contract.<P>Before you can catch your breath, the performance ends. Rise, rise, rise…Is there anything out there that is beyond an obsession with mechanical, timely rises? Clark provokes us to ask ourselves.<P>

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